Sal/mon-Jlshing — Catching the Fish. 129 



the daily struggle for life, that it seems part of another 

 and distant world. When the past rises before him, what 

 angler does not recall many such scenes, and the many 

 hours of solemn happiness which have glided by among 

 them. They are the chosen home of the very genius of 

 our art. 



With such a picture in my mind, and with such an- 

 ticipations, I approached my first salmon-pool. I looked 

 upon it with almost a shock of disappointed surprise. 

 The water was clear, from three to six feet deep, and 

 moving with a current of some three miles an hour, which 

 covered the surface with wrinkles an inch or two high. 

 The bottom was covered with stones, from the size of a 

 nut to a foot or two in diameter, swept clean by the 

 current. Below, quite a rapid could be seen; while above, 

 the water deepened and became more sluggish. A clay 

 bank about eight feet high bounded one side, while on 

 the other the water deepened and spread to the opposite 

 shore, at least a quarter of a mile distant. It was a most 

 humdrum-looking affair, relieved from absolute insipidity 

 only by the beauty of the valley and of its distant mar- 

 gin of picturesque hills. 



Though salmon, when waiting to ascend some heavy 

 fall or rapid, do lie in places which a trout-fisherman 

 would call a pool, and though they may be taken there 

 with a fly, still the great majority of salmon-pools corre- 

 spond in their general features to that described. They 

 are in reality more or less gentle rapids, with a clean 

 and gravelly bottom partially covered with loose stones, 

 boulders, and detached rocks. Deeper and stiller water 

 may be immediately above, below, or on either side; or 

 bottoms more gravelly, stony, or rocky, and with more 

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